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We
are Mongoloid by race and belong to Pun Magar tribe. Of the 112
families in this village, all but one are Pun Magar. The other
is from a different tribe known as "Damai," and is hired
by the villagers to work as a tailor and a messenger for the village.
He is paid by grain for doing this job.
Nobody
in this area can tell how old our settlement is. A general guess
is that the Pun Magar villages in this area, including Nangi village,
might be at least three hundred years old. However, according
to the story of the ancestral god of Pun Magar, the settlements
in this area must be several thousand years old. Karpakeli, the
ancestral god of Pun Magar came from western Nepal and settled
in this area. There are more than forty villages in region entirely
of the Pun Magar tribe.
Originally,
our forefathers lived a nomadic life style. They moved from one
place to another place hunting wild animals, collecting honey
from wild bees and catching a kind of frog called "Paha"
in the mountain stream. In addition, they used to raise cattle,
sheep and goats. As the forest resources dwindled with time, it
became hard for them to extract their sustenance from the forest,
and they began to farm. They also decided to settle permanently
in one place, which is how the villages were developed.
Whenever
our forefathers didn't have enough food to eat, they used to make
baskets and other materials from bamboo and barter them for grain
in the lower areas. They also used to make paper from a wild plant
called Lokta (a plant of the Daphne family) and sell them in cities
to make money.
Our
forefathers' main weapons for hunting were bows and arrows. They
used to poison the tip of arrows with poison extracted from wild
plants. However, they use muzzle loader guns for hunting now.
The hunters make gun powder by themselves.
They
used to make clothes from the thread derived from the bark of
"Puwa", a plant of the nettle family, and made blankets
from sheep and goat wool. For weaving the clothes and blankets,
they used back-strip looms. However, nowadays, most people wear
factory-made clothes, but some women still weave some clothes
in the village.
Both
men and women used to wear ornaments made from iron or silver.
Men used to wear a ring called "Durbali" in their ears
and a "Balo" on their wrists. Women used to wear different
kinds of ornaments in their noses, ears and around their necks.
Now men no longer wear any ornaments, but women still wear jewelry
made from gold and silver.
Stewing a pot of buffallo meat |
Our food is simple. Our main staple is made by mixing corn flour
with boiled water to make a paste-like food called "dhindo."
"Dhindo" is the main food of the people living in the
mountains of Nepal, and it is eaten with vegetables, beans or
meat. We also eat lots of boiled or baked potatoes.
Chickens, rabbits, goats, sheep and water buffalo are raised
for meat. When we have some extra meat, we slice the meat in thin
pieces and dry it above the fireplace. Eating beef is forbidden
because Nepal is a Hindu country by religion. Cows are considered
holy and are a sacred animal in Hindu religion. We grow fruit
like peaches, plums and apples, and also eat some wild fruits
or mushrooms that grow during the rainy season.
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